Evidential hearings took place within months of the fire, but this fact-gathering exercise is yet to produce any answers. We are told we have to wait for the investigators to complete the public inquiry and issue their findings, but we can make our own deductions. The likely cause of the fire was an electrical fault, and it isn’t much of a leap to assume that Declan will bear some responsibility for what happened. He was an electrician by trade after all.

His murderous role has to remain under the spotlight if justice is to be served. It’s understood that he had given his sister two tickets for the Empress’s last ever show, and she had gone with a friend. There was no reason for Declan to be inside the theatre that night and, so far, his sister is refusing to explain his presence.

What we do know is that the first police officer was on the scene within six minutes, and the ambulance service arrived a minute later, but these first responders weren’t cleared to enter the building until the fire service deemed it safe. When two fire crews arrived eleven minutes after the fire alarm had sounded, they were significantly under-equipped to tackle the inferno that would require twenty appliances and most of the night to bring under control. Not one of those appliances came from Sedgefield’s fire station, which had been sold to a property developer the year before. The closure was part of a wider rationalisation of the service that, according to the hype, would not compromise the safety of residents.

So where did it all go wrong? Should we blame the brave fire crews, or does the fault lie with the councillors who were forced to cut budgets? Should our government be held to account for cutting public funding, or does the blame lie closer to home? Did Declan Gallagher choose to cut corners in order to deliver the project to Phillipa Montgomery’s demanding schedule? Or was it his incompetence that cost the town eleven lives? Did he know the risks he was taking? Did Phillipa?

Reportedly, it will be months before the findings of the public inquiry are edited and published, but the town cannot and will not wait. The community is doing its best to pull together, but as we face the first anniversary of the Sedgefield’s darkest hour, we need answers.

Why was the theatre opened when it was clearly unsafe to do so?

Had the contractors been appointed on a wink and a nod, along with the approvals for the various planning consents and building inspections?

How did the fire spread through the roof space unchecked, and why didn’t the smoke detectors pick up a warning sooner?

Was it a spark from a shorted circuit that started the fire, or was it ignited by the flash of Phillipa Montgomery’s smile when the authorities gave her the go-ahead for her vanity project?